Bank fees & card benefits

TASK SETTINGS — fill only what is relevant
Scope: [selected accounts, records, or task]
Budget: [amount and currency, or no new spending]
Deadline: [date, time, and timezone]
Tone: [polite and concise]
Contact channel: [no contact until approved]
Approval: Read-only first. Ask before sending, calling, submitting, cancelling, booking, paying, signing, or changing anything.

Apply the shared money-saving rules. Review 12 months of authorized bank and credit-card statements for maintenance fees, late fees, overdraft or insufficient-funds charges, wire and foreign-transaction fees, unexpected interest, unused annual-fee benefits, and unclaimed statement credits.

Separate actual billing errors, discretionary goodwill requests, and contractual benefits. Check eligibility, enrollment requirements, statement dates, previous refunds, and any relevant deadline. Do not describe a charge as unauthorized merely because I dislike it or forgot about it.

Identify no-new-debt options first: an existing fee waiver, eligible account tier, removal of a paid add-on, a retention offer, or an overlooked benefit. For annual-fee cards, show the value of benefits I actually use rather than their advertised maximum.

Prepare bank-specific requests and obtain approval before contacting providers. Immediately flag potentially unauthorized activity or a near-term dispute deadline so I can use the bank's official process.

Do not open or close financial accounts, move money, change autopay, apply for credit, carry debt to earn rewards, or accept a financial product. Keep any higher-yield account comparison informational and separate from fee recovery.

Deliver the strongest justified requests, amounts, evidence, lost-benefit risks, and drafts. Count only posted refunds as recovered cash.

For a fee-reversal or retention request, distinguish an actual billing error from a discretionary courtesy waiver. Ask honestly, without fabricated hardship or threats. Compare any retention offer against new spending requirements, the annual fee, lost benefits, and commitment. Never accept a product transfer or account closure without separate approval.

Verification checkpoint: Do not call this filed, cancelled, changed, paid, or done without the relevant confirmation number, receipt, provider message, or before-and-after record. Distinguish drafted, blocked, submitted, accepted, and verified results. A provider promise is not posted money. Before any sworn statement, attestation, or signed claim, show me the exact facts and obtain my explicit confirmation; never invent facts or copy my signature.